From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909, offers primary source materials depicting African Americans in the nineteenth century in representations ranging from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin to humor on the minstrel stage, and abolitionist tracts in pamphlets and newspapers. Former-slave narratives provide an opportunity to analyze issues of authorship, while congressional speeches provide a look at the impact of contention in politics.

Former-Slave Narratives

Some abolitionist tracts offered accounts of the hardships of slavery straight from the pens of former slaves. A search on narrative yields six pamphlets that are attributed to former slaves. As the preface to the “Narrative of Henry Watson” notes, the intention of this account was to “present a faithful record of a few only of the transactions I have been eye-witness of, hoping that a perusal of them might add something to the already abundant testimony of the horrors of the slave system,” (page 4).

Oh! how dreadful it is to be black! Why was I born black? It would have been better had I not been born at all. Only yesterday, my mother was sold to go to, not one of us knows where, and I am left alone, and I have no hope of seeing her again. At this moment a raven alighted on a tree over my head, and I cried, "Oh, Raven! if I had wings like you, I would soon find my mother and be happy again."